Related papers: Model for disordered proteins with strongly sequen…
We propose a continuum theory of the liquid-liquid phase separation in an elastic network where phase-separated microscopic droplets rich in one fluid component can form as an interplay of fluids mixing, droplet nucleation, network…
The effect of quenched disorder in the one-dimensional asymmetric exclusion process is reviewed. Both particlewise and sitewise disorder generically induces phase separation in a range of densities. In the particlewise case the existence of…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
We use coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations to investigate diffusion properties of sheared lipid membranes with embedded transmembrane proteins. In membranes without proteins, we find normal in-plane diffusion of lipids in all flow…
The formation of polarized signaling domains on cell membranes is a fundamental example of biological pattern formation. While such patterns resemble structures from equilibrium phase separation, they are intrinsically non-equilibrium,…
Biomolecular condensates are formed via liquid-liquid phase separation of proteins, often together with nucleic acids, typically driven by interactions between low-affinity binding sites. The computational study of such condensates that…
Living and engineered systems rely on the stable coexistence of two interspersed liquid phases. Yet surface tension drives their complete separation. Here we show that stable droplets of uniform and tuneable size can be produced through…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is key to understanding aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) arising throughout cell biology, medical science, and the pharmaceutical industry. Controlling the detailed morphology of phase-separating compound…
Biomembranes, which are mainly composed of neutral and charged lipids, exhibit a large variety of functional structures and dynamics. Here, we report a coarse-grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of the phase separation and…
Biomolecular condensates composed of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are vital for proper cellular function, and their dysfunction is associated with diseases including neurodegeneration and cancer. Despite their biological…
Synthetic copolymers and biopolymers, such as polypeptides and double-stranded DNA, often exhibit strong variations in bending stiffness along their contour, which can significantly impact conformational behavior at larger scales. To…
In view of recent intense experimental and theoretical interests in the biophysics of liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), heteropolymer models with chain molecules configured as self-avoiding…
We study the phase behaviour of a fluid composed of particles which interact via a pair potential that is repulsive for large inter-particle distances, is attractive at intermediate distances and is strongly repulsive at short distances…
The phase behavior is investigated for systems composed of a large number of macromolecular components N, with N greater or equal to 2. Liquid-liquid phase separation is modelled using a virial expansion up to the second order of the…
Phase separation is a fairly common physical phenomenon with examples including the formation of water droplets from humid air (fog, rain), the separation of a crystalline structure from an isotropic material such as a liquid or even the…
Disordered systems like liquids, gels, glasses, or granular materials are not only ubiquitous in daily life and in industrial applications but they are also crucial for the mechanical stability of cells or the transport of chemical and…
The spatial organization of complex biochemical reactions is essential for the regulation of cellular processes. Membrane-less structures called foci containing high concentrations of specific proteins have been reported in a variety of…
A recent study has demonstrated that phase separation in binary liquid mixtures is arrested in the presence of elastic networks and can lead to a nearly uniformly-sized distribution of the dilute-phase droplets. At longer timescales, these…
We study spinodal phase separation in unstable thin liquid films on chemically disordered substrates via simulations of the thin-film equation. The disorder is characterized by immobile patches of varying size and Hamaker constant. The…
We propose a model describing liquid-solid phase coexistence in mixed lipid membranes by including explicitly the occurrence of a rippled phase. For a single component membrane, we employ a previous model in which the membrane thickness is…